Maybe it’s just me but my system seems to take longer to boot now. shrug As long as it works. The old motherboard has a 3 year warranty, so I’m going to try and RMA it. Unfortunately Asus’ RMA procedure is annoyingly convoluted. I have to open a tech support ticket first, and only when a tech has determined that my motherboard is pooched will he approve an RMA. I took the liberty of detailing its symptoms and my diagnostic processes, along with a note that I’m a trained A+ tech, so hopefully they won’t make me jump through any hoops and just make with the RMA number.
Heff&Roo - Thanks. This motherboard will hopefully just be temporary 'til my old one gets back from RMA. Then I can spend another hour gutting it and replacing everything with the new-old board. Or something like that; it’s a discontinued product, but I assume they will support it through its warranty period.
As for Apple – well, it was simultaneously interesting and disappointing. In brief, the new iPods are:
Shuffle: Not much new. A (product) RED version will be sold with portions of the profits going to African charity, as well as several other new colours. (Link)
Nano: New version, dubbed by the masses as “iPod Phatty” because it is shorter and wider than the 2G Nano, though it is even thinner. Screen is larger (2") and higher resolution (320x240, same as iPod Video) and it is capable of playing video and the same iPod games that are available on the Video. New user interface displays cover art and visual icons on the menus, and features browsable cover flow, just like in iTunes. New capacities are 4GB and 8GB, with the 4GB coming in silver only and retailing for $149, and the 8GB coming in all available colours at $199. It will be bundled with two games pre-loaded: Vortex (cool), and Sudoku (not my thing, but lots of people love it.) I think the new form factor is kinda ugly - it looks bigger than its predecessor, even though it’s actually probably a bit smaller, and definitely thinner. (Link)
Video: Now dubbed “iPod Classic.” Screen is the same, user interface is the new remodeled one, same as on the new nano with the floating album art and cover flow and all that good stuff. Gone is the glossy plexiglass front. It is now an all-metal enclosure just like the 2G Nano, except the back is still chrome and still attracts fingerprints like a magnet. I have mixed feelings about this. The plexiglass certainly attracted fingerprints like mad and scratched if you thought about it too hard, but it was sexy. The new one, not so much. But it’s more durable. The new models are also a bit thinner than their predecessors. It will come in two flavours: 80GB is the new base model, and the high end doubles that for 160GB of storage. Price has dropped, too: $249 for the 80GB, and $349 for the 160GB. Sweet. (Link)
Touch: This is the new flagship of the iPod line. It is basically an iPhone without the phone. It’s got the same iPhone interface with multitouch, but also sports WiFi (802.11g) along with the Safari web browser and YouTube, but lacks the maps. It is considerably thinner than the iPhone (just 8mm thick) and a tad smaller to boot, and looks incredibly sexy. The dealbreaker (for me and lots of others, anyway) is that it only comes in 8GB and 16GB flash configurations – no hard drive – and will retail for $299 and $399 respectively. I would be all the hell over it if it had at least 30 gigs, but 16 just isn’t enough for me, not nearly. You suck, Steve. You suck. (Link)
iPhone: Nothing new technologically, but they’ve dropped the 4GB model entirely, and they’ve slashed the price of the 8GB massively: It now retails for $399. Existing iPhone owners who might feel burned by this will be able to witness something unprecedented: Apple is giving all existing iPhone owners $100 in Apple Store credit. Sure, it ain’t $200 in savings, but the fact that Apple is giving anything at all is pretty damn sweet. (Link)
Misc: iTunes Wireless goes live. You will now be able to log on to and browse, preview and buy songs off of ITMS wirelessly on the iPhone and iPod Touch. (Link)
Misc 2: Custom ringtones for iPhone users. You can browse from a catalog of half a million songs to create up to 30 second clips to make as ringtones. You pick a song, bracket off a section of said song, fade in and/or out if so desired, and buy – viola! New ringtone. You’ll pay $2 for this service per ringtone, though, but if you want to use pre-cut ringtones from these songs, you can save yourself a buck. (Link)
Misc 3: Starbucks. They’ve partnered with Starbucks so that when you’re in their establishments slogging down charred, overpriced java with funny names, you can connect wirelessly to Starbucks’ hotspot and browse and buy music from their music catalog, too. Only applies to select markets in the USA for now. It’ll expand to other markets across the 'States eventually. Personally: Meh. (Link)
In case you feel like watching the entire keynote address, including a live performance by KT Tunstall at the end, you can find it here.
And yes, you can flag audio books in the new iTunes, which will enable bookmarking.
All in all, it’s interesting. Most of the biggest rumours panned out pretty much as rumoured, though in the case of the Touch, not in quite the same configuration. No one expected a split between the “Classic” and “Touch” – most people expected the Touch to be hard drive based, and I wish it was. sigh
The further down side is that this usually ends up costing money. 
about the IRS letters. Your monsters are very cute!